Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2020 March 7

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March 7

French translation

The caption in Denise Scharley was in French. "dans" was easy to fix, but what does "(cliché Harcourt)" mean? Clarityfiend (talk) 10:56, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

I put that into Google Translate and it came back "photo Harcourt". The picture is imprinted "Harcourt", which would be the studio that produced the picture. The term "cliché" originally had to do with printing.[1] So another question would be, how is that uploader (from 6-plus years ago) claiming a photo from many decades ago as his "own work"? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:42, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

See Studio Harcourt for the photographer; cliché is simply a synonym for photo here. Xuxl (talk) 20:07, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

Merci. Clarityfiend (talk) 06:51, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

Italian orthography

Italian spelling, while much more consistent than English, is not entirely unambiguous. Are there any known hints for determining which syllable is likely to have the stress in a multi-syllable word, when it's not marked by a written accent? (I know that the penult is most often the stressed syllable, but not always). --rossb (talk) 18:57, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

Perhaps more a question of Italian phonology. You can find a discussion in the section "Stress and vowel length" (pp. 8ff) of this book: Borrelli, Doris Angel (2002), Raddoppiamento Sintattico in Italian: A Synchronic and Diachronic Cross-Dialectical Study, Outstanding Dissertations in Linguistics, Routledge, ISBN 978-0415942072. The main rule: for a word of three or more syllables, the stress is usually on the penult if it is heavy (e.g. quaránta), and either on the penult or the antipenult if the penult is light (e.g. távola). This seems to be inherited from Classical Latin, for which see Latin spelling and pronunciation#Classical Latin syllables and stress.  --Lambiam 04:26, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

Translating Latin chant

I refer to this youtube video. The most likely lyrics are Latin for "Sufferance on the surface is our sustenance. Through difficulties to honors. Through hardships to paradise", but I would like to be sure. אילן שמעוני (talk) 20:10, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

Can you (or anyone) make out any of the Latin text? That might be helpful for discerning the meaning. The last two sentences could be an English translation of a pair of Latin sentences found on the Web: “Per angusta ad augusta. Per aspera ad paradisum.” I do not hear that back in the chant, but I can hardly discern anything in there.  --Lambiam 10:26, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

It may be the phrase seen here. אילן שמעוני (talk) 00:23, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

The first sentence comes from Horace's Odes, specifically Ode XXVIII, "Archytas": Sed omnes una manet nox (some editions have omnis), "But one night awaits all". Here, "night" is (generally interpreted as) a metaphor for death: in the end all living creatures have the same fate. Taken out of context, "night" can of course stand figuratively for anything dark, for suffering and hopelessness. We have an article on Dum spiro spero. Per angusta ad augusta is the motto of numerous educational establishments (and is used by the conspirators in Victor Hugo's Hernani). I don't know the provenance of the last sentence, but Per aspera ad paradisum is an obvious variation on the common motto Per aspera ad astra. I see no issues with the translation of these two sentences. Together:

One night awaits all.

While I breathe, I hope.

Through difficulties to honors.

Through hardships to paradise.

 --Lambiam 08:06, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

The above concerns the text written around the circle. The song heard on the youtube video is "狂気" ("Kyouki" – pronounce like "kyōki" with a long "ō"), composed by Ichinoryu Uehara (作曲家上原一之龍), item 11 on the euphoria soundtrack. The song title means "Madness". I still can't recognize any words in the chant; might it be Japanese? I could not find the lyrics of "Kyouki" on the Web.  --Lambiam 10:00, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

The music is described as "relaxing piano". Whatever language the vocalists are singing in it's not Latin. 2A00:23C4:5707:CA00:9019:E361:7E47:3C1D (talk) 14:37, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

O, I've always wondered what sound pianos make when they relax.  --Lambiam 15:02, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

Ah, sorry, I wasn't reading my notes. The description was "peaceful piano". 2A00:23C4:5707:CA00:9019:E361:7E47:3C1D (talk) 15:35, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

Intriguing. It's neither peaceful nor piano. אילן שמעוני (talk) 16:42, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

Im pretty sure its the words around the circle, "Omnes una manet nox. Dum spiro, spero. Per angusta ad agusta. Per aspera ad paradisum" which im pretty sure mean the cult chant given by the scientists to Dear Leader: "Sufferance on the surface is our sustenance. Through difficulties to honors. Through hardships to paradise". Its a pretty important thing in Euphoria, because it ties together the facility, the Paradise program, and the cult. Reason for why its the lyrics of the song related to Rinne, the daughter of Dear Leader. StarDust1223 (talk) 19:35, 14 April 2022 (UTC)